Ram makes name for himself

Published 1:36 am, Tuesday, September 1, 2009

NEW HAVEN -- He was back on familiar ground, playing on another small court, in front of another small crowd. There were less than 100 people sitting in the Grandstand when Rajeev Ram began warming up for the next biggest match of his life.

The previous evening, in a very unfamiliar place -- in front of close to 6,000 on Stadium Court -- Ram did something not many thought he could do, knock off Mardy Fish, No. 26 in the world but No. 1 in Anne Worcester's heart, to reach the third round of the Pilot Pen. Now a date in the quarterfinals was within Ram's grab and needless to say, there haven't been many times that Ram was that close to grabbing something that big.

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Ram, you see, is still learning how to play championship level tennis. Five years ago, he said goodbye to Carmel, Ind., packed up his nine junior national titles and his NCAA team championship into his racquet bag and turned professional, looking toward the next great adventure.

He's still looking.

Ram is just 25 and one of a half dozen young Americans looking to break through into the Top 100. He is close now, closer than he's ever been, at No. 117, to doing just that. In July, he won his very first ATP event on the grass at Newport, R.I., beating another young American, Sam Querrey. And because of that, Worcester handed Ram a nice little gift, a wild card into the Pilot Pen.

That meant no qualifying.

How many times has he done that? Too many to count. This year alone Ram has tried to qualify at the Australian Open, Delray Beach, Indian Wells, the French Open, Queens, Montreal and Cincinnati. He lost each time.

But he did qualify for Wimbeldon, reached the finals in Baton Rouge and the semifinals in Challenger events in Dallas and Thailand.

And then there was Newport.

"As exciting as it was, it was more validation than anything," Ram said Wednesday at the Pilot Pen. "Just to say what I'm doing is the right thing. That's always nice. You can keep telling yourself to keep working hard but its nice to have those wins on the board."

Before Ram's tough 6-4, 6-7 (6), 5-7 loss to Florent Serra on the Grandstand, he had not only beaten Fish but also Nicolas Lapentti. And he almost defeated Serra, letting match point slip away in a second set tiebreaker.

"I did have a solid tournament but I'm more disappointed than excited. It's tough to lose when you have match point," he said. "I felt like I played all right the whole way through and I thought I had it a couple of times with match point in the second and being up an early break in the third, but credit to him, he didn't crack."

Ram will take the positives from this with him to New York, where he also received a wild card in the U.S. Open. Slowly but surely (and thanks to a huge confidence boost from winning at Newport), he is gaining match toughness and experience, things that will one day, push him not only into the Top 100 but maybe even the Top 25.

"I think I've learned, especially in the last year, that it's a lot simpler than I realized, playing professional tennis. There are no secrets. You got to do what you do well and you have to bring that to the table every day," Ram said. "I think part of why I struggled in the past was I tried to do too much. I felt like I needed to do more than I really had to, be a different player than I was in college and in juniors to succeed on Tour and that wasn't the case.

"I feel like this is a long-term thing. I feel like people mature and figure it out at different ages and I feel like I'm just starting to get it."

Oh, and while Ram is very much at home on the outer courts at pretty much every tournament he plays, that taste of Stadium Court the other night? It tasted very good, indeed.

"I loved that. I loved it, playing a night match against Mardy," Ram said. "It's a little bit addicting. You want to get back there as much as possible. I loved playing out there and hopefully I can do it more in the future."